Take Launchy beyond application launching

Most people know Launchy as a simple and lightning-fast application launcher for Windows, but it's actually capable of much more than that. Using Launchy, you can append text to files, schedule appointments, add to your to-do list, set reminders, and more—it just takes a little setting up. Today I'll detail how I use Launchy for more than just app launching.

The real brains behind most of what I describe below involves using Windows batch files in conjunction with cURL (an open source command line tool for transferring data with URL syntax) and Twitter.* So if you don't already have it, go download cURL (find the Windows section), then extract the curl.exe file to C:\WINDOWS.

Now download this zipped folder. Inside you'll see several batch files I've prepared for you. Basically, we're going to use these batch files like plugins by running terminal commands with Launchy. First, extract them to

C:\Program Files\Launchy\Utilities. Then invoke Launchy, right-click the Launchy command window and select Directories. You should already have the Utilities\ folder included in your list of Directories to scan, but you need to add the .bat filetype to the files you want Launchy to scan for in that folder, so under Directory Information -> File Types, type in .bat and click Add (see screenshot above).

Now we'll walk through how to set up the Launchy batch tools one-by-one below.

Remember the Milk with Launchy

1. Open the rtm.bat file in your favorite text editor.
2. 
   
   
   
3. On the third line, replace username:password with your Twitter username and password and save the file.*
   
4. Now set up RTM to work with Twitter here (remember to add 'rtm' as a friend in Twitter.

Any time you want to add an item to RTM on-the-fly, just invoke Launchy, type rtm, hit Tab, and then type the task you want to add. See the command list here for how you can get specific with RTM syntax.

Post to Google Calendar with Launchy

We're going to follow most of the same steps as we did with the rtm.bat file:

1. Open the gcal.bat file in your favorite text editor.
2. On the third line, replace username:password with your Twitter username and password and save the file.*
3. Now set up Gcal to work with Twitter with Twittercal (remember to add 'gcal' as a friend in Twitter.

You can add anything to Google Calendar using Launchy by typing gcal, hitting Tab, and typing in your event using the natural language of Gcal's quick add (e.g., lunch 1pm tomorrow at Sally's).

Set SMS reminders with Launchy

Again we're using a batch file and Twitter. This time it's a handy Twitter app called timer that lets you set SMS reminders. To set it up:

1. Open the timer.bat file in your favorite text editor.
2. On the third line, replace username:password with your Twitter username and password and save the file.*
3. Now just add timer as a friend on Twitter and you're ready to go.

Any time you want to set up a timed SMS reminder for yourself, just invoke Launchy, type timer,
hit Tab, and enter something like 'call mom in 45.' In 45 minutes
you'll get an SMS reminder on the phone you've set up with Twitter.

Append text to files with Launchy

Being able to append text to a plain text file on-the-fly with Quicksilver gets me through my day, and now you can do the same with Launchy. Appending text to a file doesn't require Twitter (ahh....), but it does use another batch file. This method comes from the Making the Ordinary weblog,and I've included it in the download above. To use it, you need to have a place you want to capture a list in text. The default in the add.bat file is C:\todo\todo.txt.
If you want to keep your list elsewhere, just change the first (and only) line of the batch file to match the path to your file.

Whenever you want to add a line to your text file, type add, hit Tab, and type your to-do. When you hit enter, the text will automagically be appended to your todo.txt file.

Twit with Launchy

Finally, if you're actually a Twitter user, the twit.bat file should take care of you. Just open it up and change the username and password to match your own like above. Then you can update your Twitter status by invoking Launchy, typing twit, entering your status, and hitting Enter.

More uses for cURL and batch?

There's a lot of room for improvement for how these batch files work (for example, your Twitter password is now being kept in an unencrypted batch file), but there's also a lot of room for expanding on this idea with other web applications beyond Twitter that you could interact with using the command line and cURL via Launchy. I'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions in the comments.

For more on advanced Launchy usage, see how I tweak Launchy to index my music collection, search my Firefox keyword bookmarks, navigate my file system, and more.

Huge thanks to reader Don Whitford for sending in the cURL innovations and reader Trent for his ideas!

* That's right, many of these "plug-ins" use Twitter. If you don't already have a Twitter account, you'll need to grab one now. Twitter is a beloved social app to some and a hated time waster to others, but it's neither here. It's merely a means to an end. The benefit to setting up Launchy to work with Twitter in this way is that any of these Twitter apps are also accessible on-the-go from your cell phone, providing you with a universal access point for a local and
mobile command line of sorts.

Ref: Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who loves the rebirth of the command line. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.